


Damage

by allfireburns



Category: Dollhouse
Genre: Community: sunday_reveries, Gen, Injury, POV Third Person, Pre-Canon, Present Tense, Trauma, disorientation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-07
Updated: 2009-12-07
Packaged: 2017-10-04 06:09:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allfireburns/pseuds/allfireburns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing in Claire's life feels real anymore, but that's only natural.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Damage

Claire doesn't go home, after it happens. She'd never have made the drive home anyway - the whole thing's a hazy mess of blood loss and narcotics and shock, and as she wanders to the small room in the hall behind her office where DeWitt's had a cot set up for her, she's not sure that's entirely faded. Everything feels distant and soft-edged - her own office, when she passes through it, seems like a part of someone else's life. It's only natural, she guesses, with this kind of trauma, but it's unsettling when all she wants is to be somewhere comfortable, and safe, and familiar.

She falls into the chair behind her desk anyway, the same place she always sits (isn't it?), where there's a book open and face-down set to one side of the desk, and an empty coffee mug in front of her. She doesn't remember reading the book. She doesn't remember drinking the coffee. But that's only natural too - you forget the stupid, everyday things that come before, when what happens after is so... very... far from that. She doesn't remember how to do the everyday just now.

Sitting there, staring at the faint smudges of dust on her desk (outlining what might have been picture frames, and that's strange, isn't it, when she never had pictures there), memories fall slowly into place. Talking to Adelle, staring into a mug of tea and trying not to cry because the painkillers haven't kicked in yet. Waking up in Topher's chair, and he's standing right there, tripping over himself to explain that she's only there because they had too many bodies in her office. Screaming, and blood on the hardwood floors, light glinting off a blade and Alpha, Alpha, Alpha...

Claire shivers and pushes herself out of the chair, shaking her head a little. It doesn't quite shake loose the memory, and she didn't expect it to. Healing doesn't happen overnight. The cut on her lip has cracked open, and she can taste copper on her lips. It stings when she licks the blood away, but that, at least, feels real.

She can't decide what she's supposed to do now, what they expect her to do, except maybe to stay out of the way until everyone stops wincing when they look at her. She could read the book on her desk, listen to music, try to forget. She could call her sister, and cry, but she hasn't spoken to any of her family in four years, and what would she ever say to them now? A stray thought crosses her mind - _I just want to go home_ \- and she almost laughs at that. Home won't help anything. The Dollhouse is as good a place to be as any, now.

In the end, she walks quietly to the other room. She swallows two of the painkillers they'd handed her, and falls into a bed that's too hard and smells like sandalwood and rose water and nothing real, just the Dollhouse. There's still blood on her lips, and on her tongue, but when she falls asleep, she doesn't dream of blood - just light, and electricity, and the man standing over her isn't Alpha at all.

She wakes up, hours later, and she doesn't remember a thing, but that's only natural.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Damage [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/376608) by [tinypinkmouse_podfic (tinypinkmouse)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinypinkmouse/pseuds/tinypinkmouse_podfic)




End file.
